Capital Based Macroeconomics: Boom and Bust in Japan and the U.S.

Some economists and the financial press believe that the U.S. in the 1990s and Japan in the 1980s experienced economic growth driven by a positive productivity shock. The economic growth was accompanied by growth of money and credit aggregates. Proponents of real business cycle considered the money growth benign, while adherents of the natural rate theory viewed it as beneficial because either the price level was stable or inflation rates were extremely low.

Who was Ludwig von Mises?

Ludwig von Mises (29 Sept. 1881-10 Oct. 1973), economist and social philosopher, was born Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (today, Lviv, Ukraine), the son of Arthur von Mises, a railroad engineer and civil servant, and Adele von Mises, born Adele Landau. Von Mises was still a small boy when his family moved to Vienna. In 1892 he entered the Akademisches Gymnasium, where he received a humanistic education and befriended Hans Kelsen. Early on, von Mises was particularly interested in history and politics.

Deflation and Liberty

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This monograph addresses a critically important issue: the prevailing view that deflation (falling prices and/or falling money stock) is a catastrophe that must be stopped. Jorg Guido Hulsmann shows that deflation is nothing to fear. The government should permit it to happen as a path to economic recovery and even as a tool to reform. Institutions that are liquidated in deflation need to be liquidated, and that includes banks and other financial institutions as well.